Diary Entry

5.15 am My back has kept me awake most of the night. So much for missing the Tuesday criminal law lecture and making it up on Wednesday morning! I should have gone yesterday because there's no way I'll make it today. I've taken some painkillers, hoping they'd not only get rid of the pain, or at least lessen it, but also help me drop off to sleep, but no such luck. I've watched a card making programme on Create and Craft TV (one of the shopping channels). I have some great card making ideas, though I don't think I'd buy anything off their channel. Too expensive, especially considering the amount they charge for postage and packaging!

Anyway, I suppose I'll do what I can to get some sleep, then head off to the library when I'm fit enough to drive. I have to go tonight to my EU law seminar and the meeting about the trip to Brussels. I'm not as worried about losing my place on the trip after that woman had trouble finding my name on the list. There was an email from the lecturer heading up the trip saying there were still a few places available. BUT, total embarrassment, my cheque to the university for the balance bounced! I was so careful to check every night before I went to bed on my online banking to be sure there was enough money to cover it, and the one night I forgot ... All I can say is "shit". I didn't realise Simon had drawn some money out to do some repairs on the ice cream van, which he is perfectly entitled to do, and I was about three pounds short of the £85 for the cheque I'd written. That's just my luck.

3.05 pm Oh geez ... Braden woke Ricky and Jack up at 7.00 this morning, just as I had fallen asleep! All hell broke loose because they had to fight with each other. Just after 8.00 I went up and woke up Simon practically in tears because I was so tired. He sent me to bed, and I only woke up 20 minutes ago! I have an EU law seminar tonight, and I haven't prepared for it! Simon said I didn't tell him what time to wake me up and that he thought I needed the sleep.

8.18 pm Just a quick one from the university library. I made it to my EU seminar, just like most of my fellow group members, but it seems we weren't having a seminar because the tutor never showed up! He was at the meeting of people going to Brussels though. I never got a chance to ask him about getting that assignment back because he was busy with a lot of students.

I'm getting excited about this trip now! It sounds like it's going to be a real blast, not so much a school trip as a holiday where they have made arrangements to go see certain things, but otherwise we're on our own to do whatever we want! I had a moment's worry when he said that if you weren't a UK citizen you might need a visa, so I rushed over here to the library and checked on the Belgian travel website. US citizens don't need a visa if you're going to be there less than 90 days. I'm definitely going to be there less than 90 days. We leave here at midnight on Sunday the 20th/Monday the 21st, cross from Dover to Calais, and then might make a stop in Bruges on the way to Brussels for lunch. Sounds very cool. After that, it's a tour of the EU Commission and the Stella Artois brewery on the Tuesday, the EU Council and Parliament on the Wednesday, and the Duval Chocolate factory on the Thursday, with a last night party at a restaurant on the Thursday night. Hardly a demanding itenerary!

I found this picture on one of the websites. I am going to have a blast with the camera!